Towering above many nefarious contemporary noisemakers, Londons Akercocke erupted across the consciousness of the UK metal scene in the late '90s, wielding a fiendishly inventive blend of death, black and progressive metal. Their distinctive, smartly-dressed demeanour and eloquent preoccupation with all things dark and Satanic marked them out both as ferociously individual artists and enlightened students of the pitch-black sonic code. 'Renaissance In Extremis' is a bold, bullish and belligerent statement of creative intent: metals dark spirit reborn in an explosion of bright ideas and inspirational fury.